The Museum Doctor podcast with Philip Long

Paul: Hi Phil. Good to see you.

 

Phil: Hi Paul. Very nice to see you again.

 

Paul: I think you've maybe been at the National Trust for Scotland for about four years now, maybe just a bit more. and whenever I think of the National Trust I think of what a huge organisation you have. I wonder if you could maybe begin by giving listeners a sense of the scale of the organisation.

 

Phil: Yes, of course. And I have been at the Trust for about four and a half years now. I started in the summer of 2020, in the first few months of the pandemic when I think we thought all of that wouldn't last very much longer. But of course that was not the case. So for all of us, and particularly for those, and starting new jobs at the time, it was a very strange, experience and we might want to talk about some of the challenges that, that the Trust faced which are pretty common to most organisations. I knew the Trust quite well beforehand but coming into it and now I've been here for a few years, I've learned a lot about it and its breadth of experience, quite breadth of responsibility. Sorry quite a lot of which will not always be visible to people, who who get involved with the Trust. So if I may, I will say just a little bit about it to introduce it. It was an organisation that was founded in 1931, following on from the development of its sister organisation, the National Trust and England, Wales and Northern Ireland, very much with the intention of conserving heritage and particularly heritage which, which was at risk. it had from the very beginning, the intention to not just be about the conservation of the heritage, the physical and the natural, but also about access. And, and so whilst perhaps today organisation such as ours are perhaps thought of as guardians of historic houses, the National Trust of Scotland, like other conservation bodies that were set up at that time, was also about promoting openness of access. And so I think they were quite pioneering in terms of land access. 1931, you know, predates by a long time, the Scottish Outdoor Access Code and the right to Rome that gave a freedom to access across the land, certainly in Scotland. And some of the earliest, properties that came into the Trust's custody were places like Glenc Coe, because those that had been responsible for them wanted to assure that forever into the future they would be something that would be publicly accessible and looked after by a body, a Conservation charity. This prime mission was about the care of the place and also the accessibility. So across many years the Trust began to expand in its ownership and particularly after the Second World War as changes especially in inheritance tax began to be introduced more and more properties found their way to the Trust and historic houses and castles certainly places like the House of the Bins and in West Lothian was was one of the earliest historic houses that came into our responsibility just towards the end of the war. But at the same time in then in that post war period also extraordinary landscapes such as St Kilda the archipelago of St Kilda way out into the Atlantic came into our ownership. today the Trust is responsible for UM110 visited properties and that covers an extraordinary diversity of place in Scotland and type of properties everything from as I've said the remoteness and romanticism of St Kilda, through to grand historic houses like 5e Castle, aspects of our industrial and domestic past like the Weaver's Cottage and Cobarkin or Smails Printing Works Inerlean which is an extraordinary institution set up in the mid 19th century is effectively a small country town printers and which still has its archive of everything that it printed since then and which we still operate as a as a printer's and so if you want your invitations done there or to find out about you know what is now the the the much less known art of mechanical printing then you can go and see that and the Trust has a responsibility to care for that. So all of those properties we look after and we make them as accessible to people as much as possible through lots of different ways that we might talk about during this and I'll just say a little bit Paul ve me at this point about the sort of business model of how it all works. And so the Trust was established as an independent charity and it still is. it depends entirely on its own enterprise and the support that it can encourage people to give to enable the charity to work. It is not publicly funded. It does occasionally get welcome grants from government and from government funded bodies. But it's £70 million a year or so. Turnover has to be met by our by our own enterprise whether that's commercial enterprise, whether it's through membership, whether it's through through philanthropy, that is core to the Trust's business to enable it to fulfil its charitable purpose of conservation, and access.

 

Paul: So you mentioned at the outset, Covid and the pandemic, which I can only imagine in terms of knowing its impact on others at the time, that that must have been quite devastating for the Trust.

 

Phil: It was very difficult. I came in really, in the early months of that and I found an organisation which was deeply concerned and I'll just explain the circumstances of why it might seem rather obvious I explain it. But I think it did surprise people at the time and maybe that's because the National Trust for Scotland is an organisation that had been going for so long and because of its name, I think it was very much thought of and it is a sort of foundation organisation in Scotland, an organisation so established that perhaps almost taken for granted, But the reality of the pandemic and Its onset in the spring of 2020 and The closure of places, And the need that was strongly felt at the time for us to isolate meant that at the outset of the visitor season in Scotland, the Trust effectively had to close down its operations, closed down all its historic properties. And so in one stroke that meant that the Trust was going to lose all of the revenue that it would make, on the gate, so to speak. it's necessary for our business model to charge admission to our places and We were deeply concerned also that it would affect people's willingness to continue as a member. A very important part of the revenue of the Trust is through the membership subscriptions that. That. That we receive and I'm sure people will understand that. If it was felt that The. The usefulness of that membership in terms of access to places could no longer be taken up because of the closure of the places during the pandemic, then it would be natural to question, well why would one continue with one's membership, if exacerbated by the. The deep financial concern, that we all felt, the risk that we felt to our livelihoods and so on, might well very much undermine people's confidence in. In staying with. In staying with the Trust. And so that was. That was greatly challenging. I think it's also worth mentioning that the Trust as an employer is an organisation which has a substantial core staff. But during the visitor season that staff rises more greatly in number because we need more help to open and run and our places and make. Make help make them a great experience for people. And we had recruited our seasonal staff, to get on with the full opening of our properties. And so all of a sudden that staff didn't have our function. So there was very many, many things to deal with that were. That were. That were greatly challenging.

 

Paul: So I guess you know, in a sense, I think all of us at the time felt that the pandemic was maybe a once in a lifetime, event. Once maybe in a multiple lifetime event. and I think you know, what we've subsequently seen is an impact from inflation and cost of living. So I wonder how the. The Trust has adapted to an ongoing situation that's ob. Obviously having an impact I guess on visitor spend.

 

Phil: Yeah, yeah, no, very good to talk about that. And before I even do that I might just conclude it a little bit more positively about what did. Happened with the pandemic and with the Trust and despite the. The terrible situation and the tragedy that it cost in many people's lives. And what we also saw was that it did help us speak more so about the Trust as a charitable body that depended on people's support. I think what we also saw was that at that time and as people were begin. Were able to begin to get out again and visit places, increasingly the outdoor places and places where people could go and feel safe and with their families, became even more so. More important. And so those factors along with the furlough scheme, meant that the Trust was able to recover and in fact the, the deep worry that we had about our financial situation despite the loss of all of our revenue activities and our. Our Our ticket ticket receipts which really just went off a cliff in the summer of 2020. And we were able to call to people for their support and I think we saw that people valued even more greatly the importance of Scotland's heritage, Scotland's culture, the sorts of things that become that one can no longer enjoy in a circumstance like that. And so I think it was a reminder to us all that these things are incredibly value voluable. And so we've worked hard since to I think develop even more so an understanding that the Trust is not something that can be taken for granted, does not benefit from public funding, and talk even more so about the fact that we are a charitable cause that if it's going to continue to care for so much of heritage, that is so precious to Scotland and if you like, to my mind can even define Scotland to many people's eyes and not just in this country but also internationally. And then Then that was something that could help lead people better understanding our organisation. Circumst difficult circumstances continue to follow after that. the There's no doubt in my mind that the challenges of Brexit and the way that that's affected employment patterns, the consequences of inflation and a very unsettled economy coming out, as a consequence of the pandemic but also because of conflict between nations that have affected energy, prices and created global uncertainty and uncertainty in the markets have given us headwinds, real headwinds that we have had to face up and Continue. Continue to be challenged by. And there's no doubt also in my mind that uncertainty around government, changing government and changing policies, also creates uncertainty and New challenges that one needs to respond to and respond to quite quickly. and so all of these things we have needed to manage. I'm pleased to say that so far we have been able to manage that and I think If anything the pandemic threw something so hard at us that it has helped organisation like the Trust become more resilient, more risk aware. Think more about anticipating risk and doing that sort of a Horizon gathering exercise which allows one just to think about What may happen in the future, what may come to pass. That me That we really need to begin to think now about how we. How we might mitigate the effect on the organisation. Mhm.

 

Paul: You've clearly articulated the importance of revenue generation to the Trust. I just wondered if you could maybe elaborate a little bit in terms of The importance of that in terms of the Trust's overall mission and goals.

 

Phil: Well, revenue generation for us is absolutely vital. And I've said it already but it's just worth emphasising again the Trust financially needs to stand completely on its own two feet. And so our business model does not work without generating revenue. And and We I suppose are trying to be very clear about the importance of that. when we are speaking to people about the Trust's mission and its goals, we need to be able to be very clear that without people's support, withoutue generation, we could not carry out our mission of conservation, for so much of Scotland's heritage. and And also enabling Our places to be enjoyable and inspirational and and accessible. So, That We have no qualms whatsoever about talking about the importance of generating income. Across. Across. Across a very wide range of activities because as an independent charity we simply need to do that. It is part of our. It is part of our Of our model. I don't think either that that is A disadvantage in any way. I think it's good to be clear that That The conservation of our precious culture and heritage requires support and to enable that to be done And I think that enables us at the Trust certainly to be able to speak with quite a lot of confidence about that and In asking people for support.

 

Paul: In terms of membership which. Which you've mentioned, I know that's incredibly important. Can you give us a sense of the scale of the membership of the Trust at the moment?

 

Phil: Yes, Our membership is very important. We were. We were founded as a membership organ organisation and our. Our membership has an important role in our governance. We have an annual general meeting for our. For our members and our members are able to vote as part of our constitution on a number of important aspects of the Trusts governance in its direction. They will vote for example on approving the price of The. The most important single category of membership. They will also Have a role in voting on the election of Trustees to our to our board. Our membership currently, numbers just. Just shy of 340,000 U. people who have the benefits of membership through their subscriptions to the Trust and We value that membership community very very much. It's And it's an audience for us that is closely interested in our organisation and they have generously made the commitment to be To be U. To be a member. It also means that we've got a very Substantial group that we can speak to about the Trust and also matters that concern the Trust more widely. That we may be responsible for or that we may not be responsible for the conservation of our places, the importance of the care of our environment. There are so many So many Issues and developments that can affect that at the. At the moment, Whether it's planning controls around battlefields or the developing infrastructure that is going to be vital to Enable Our low carbon. low carbon energy sources are all things also that have Implications for our countryside, For our environment and And for the nature that is all around us, the biodiversity that is a substantial part of our responsibility to care for. And so through that member, having. Having that membership, that group of people, We find that is also group that we can speak to about that. And so we will frequently u. Get them involved in answering surveys and questionnaires that we might want to do. We seek their feedback through Through the. There. Through the pages of our. Of our magazine or through our social media activity and so on.

 

Paul: So you've mentioned two critical areas of income generation in terms of paid admission. and obviously the membership that you have. Could you describe some of the other primary income streams that are really essential to balancing the books?

 

Phil: Sure. So, Our funding sources fall into a number of sort of primaries streams and I'll just say what they are first before I go into a bit more detail about them. so we have a wide set of enterprise activities. We have the subscriptions that we receive from membership and also as a consequence of that we encourage as much as people where they qualify to sign up to gifted which is very important for us. and we have a very important stream of philanthropy. the trust also given its long standing and its preference whenever it's been possible to accept a property with our. With our financial endowment to support its operational running also has reserves which It can't spend. they're restricted to the benefit of properties and but We are able to invest those reserves to generate income to subsidise the operational deficits of the places that we. That we. That we. We care for. So they in the main make up the. The. The principal income streams to go back to enterprise. That covers a w Very wide range of. Of. Of activities which yes they're primarily commercial and generate much, much needed profitability but they also do provide and they also I think are an important part of the experience that we offer to people when they visit our places. So We have extensive food and beverage outlets across the trust, whether it's small cafes at places like Kelly Castle and Fi through to really quite substantial restaurants at places like The visitor centre at the battlefield of Culloden where we have a very substantial number of international visitors and many of our places also you would expect retail.